Dawn of War - Soulstorm

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm is the third and final expansion of the Dawn of War series of PC games, featuring two new factions: the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle. Each older faction received new units and air units were incorporated as well for the first time. The campaign is much like the Dark Crusade, though the experience has been enhanced with new units and factions. In this installation of the franchise, players must conquer 32 territories across four planets and three moons in the Kaurava System to win. The game also features multi-player achievements, including medals, which are earned when certain objectives are accomplished.

Contents

Game Description

Much like its popular predecessor, Dark Crusade, Soulstorm is a stand-alone expansion pack. All nine factions are available for play in the campaign and single player skirmish games, but in order to play as the older factions online, the player must have all of the previous respective games to unlock them. The Platinum Edition of Dawn of War includes the original game and its two previous expansions, Winter Assault and Dark Crusade.

Plot

The Kaurava Campaign began after the sudden appearance of a Warp Storm near the world of Kaurava IV. The nine factions were drawn to investigate the system from across the galaxy with their own fleets and conflicting intentions. However, the Warp Storm wreaked havoc on their navigation interfaces, stranding them on the four inhabited planets and three moons of the system. The nine factions are then forced to battle between planets to ultimately conquer the planetary system and discover the reason for the emergence of the Warp Storm. The reason for the Warp Storm, as explained after the conquest by the Forces of Chaos, began with an ignorant Imperial Guardsman with latent psyker genes who was whispered to by the Chaos Gods, who told him to prepare a sacrifical ritual and he complied. His actions unknowingly summoned a warband of the Alpha LegionChaos Space Marines to the Kaurava System, thus initiating the conflict.

Three armies were already on the planet when the Warp Storm was unleashed, blocking all further transportation to or communications with the world: The 252nd Conservator Regiment of the Imperial Guard, the representatives of the star system's original ruler, the Imperium of Man, who had landed on Kaurava I under the newly appointed Imperial Govenor-General Vance Stubbs; the Feral Ork tribes of Kaurava II who had been uplifted to become more technologically advanced by the arrival of their new Warlord Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter and the Necrons, who had been slumbering under the sands of Kaurava III, a Necron Tomb World, for millions of years and were now led by the newly awakened Necron Lord of Kaurava. First, the Alpha Legion arrived in the name of Chaos Undivided under the Chaos Champion of KhorneFiraeveus Carron, who established a base for his forces on Kaurava IV. It is a mystery as to how the forces of the Traitor Legion arrived in the system: the Warp Storm may have brought them through the Warp or perhaps it was their presence that summoned the Warp Storm. The truth of the matter remains elusive. Second, a Blood RavenSpace Marine force of 5 companies led by Force Commander Captain Indrick Boreale established a base on Kaurava II to end the danger posed to the Imperium by the xenos and heretics alike in the system. The Tau Empire claimed one of the moons of Kaurava II, Nan Yanoi, as its own as the empire sought to add Kaurava to its own expanding territory and bring the concept of the Greater Good to its formerly Imperial citizens. The Tau built on the moon of Kaurava II a mighty plasma cannon, the Ar'Ka Cannon, by the order of the Tau Commander Shas'O Or'es'Ka. From under the sands of Kaurava III, the Necrons arose, perhaps due to the effects of the Warp Storm. In quick response to the Necrons' awakening, long unused Webway Gates flickered to life and brought the Eldar of the Ulthwe Craftworld, led by Farseer Caerys, to fight against their ancient deathless enemies who they knew had reawakened on the world. From the shadows of an Ancient Webway Gate a raiding Kabal of the Dark Eldar appeared, looking for souls and new bounty, with the Kabal of the Black Heart's Archon Tahril as their leader. The Kabal of the Black Heart was the single largest and most powerful Kabal in the Dark City of Commorragh, and because of this, they were the dominating power in that hidden city of the Dark Eldar. Last, but certainly not least, the Battle-Sisters of the Order of the Sacred Rose, a sect of the Adepta Sororitas' Orders Militant, better known in the Imperium as the Sisters of Battle, arrived and established a base on Kaurava I under the command of Canoness Selena Agna. They had come to Kaurava to cleanse the star system of every last xeno and heretic, even if such a task led to conflict with the other servants of the Emperor already within the system.

As with its predecessor Dark Crusade, Soulstorm features a "meta-campaign" featuring 31 territories spread over four planets and three moons. One difference however, is that unlike Dark Crusade, there are no persistent bases. Once the player conquers a province, the base structures the player has built up will not be present in future conflicts. This can be remedied by reinforcing provinces with buildings and units in between battles, or by establishing a forward base using the Sisters of Battle's unique army ability.

Outcomes

The fate of the Kaurava System depends on the actions taken by the various factions fighting over it; it can be returned to the control of the Imperium, become a new frontier Sept of the Tau Empire, become the black heart of the Necrons' next genocidal "red harvest", the base of the greatest OrkWAAAGH! ever launched, or a new Daemon World of the Warp. If the Kaurava Campaign is ultimately won by the Imperial Guard's 252nd Conservator Regiment under the command of Governor-General Vance Stubbs, the Kaurava System remains a part of the Imperium of Man. Lord General Stubbs and his men are then declared heroes by the people of the Kaurava System. The system began to thrive again thanks to vast rebuilding, mining and terraforming projects that were initiated by Governor Stubbs. The numerous military academies that were built there following the Imperial Guard's victory turned out superior Imperial Guardsmen who were second in quality only to the KasrkinCadian Shock Trooper regiments of Cadia. Only Kaurava III was left largely barren, due to the fact that it had been the Tomb World where the Necrons had risen. General Stubbs' ability to organise and reform the long-neglected Kauravan Imperial Guard Regiment did not go unnoticed by Ultima Segmentum Command, and he was promoted in time from the lesser role of Governor-General to full control over a small star system as an Imperial Planetary Governor.

Canonical Ending

The ultimate fate of the Kaurava System depends on the actions taken by the various factions fighting over it. In Dawn of War II , the follow-on PC game, Scout Sergeant Cyrus reveals that the Blood Ravens under Captain Indrick Boreale had died and suffered a terrible defeat in the Kaurava System, with all 5 of the Blood Raven companies deployed under his command destroyed, essentially costing the Chapter half of its manpower in a single campaign. As a result, the Blood Ravens needed to step up their recruiting process in Sub-sector Aurelia, their only remaining recruiting ground for Neophytes who were desperately needed to make good the Chapter's losses during the disastrous Kaurava Campaign. The subsequent invasion of that region by a Tyranid splinter Hive Fleet soon threatened the very existence of the Blood Ravens Chapter.

New Forces

The Dark Eldar

The Dark Eldar are the forsaken and corrupt kindred of the Eldar, an ancient and advanced race of elf-like humanoids. Their armies, like their Eldar counterparts, usually have the advantages of mobility and advanced technology, though they are often lacking in resilience and numbers. The Dark Eldar revel in piracy, enslavement and torture, and are sadistic in the extreme. Dark Eldar armies make use of various anti-gravity skimmers such as Raiders and Ravagers to launch high speed attacks. They strike with little or no warning, using an interdimensional labyrinth known as the Webway to traverse the galaxy safely and far more quickly than most advanced races are able to with their Warp jumps. The Dark Eldar are unique amongst the intelligent races of the Milky Way Galaxy because they do not live on a settled world or worlds, but rather in one foul city-state - the Dark City of Commorragh - that lies within the "ordered" Immaterium of the Eldar Webway. The Dark Eldar are mainly pirates and slavers who prey on targets across the galaxy to feed their unholy appetites for other sentient beings' souls, a terrible desire called the Thirst, though they are sometimes used as mercenaries by other species. The Dark Eldar are the living embodiments of all that is wanton and cruel in the Eldar character. Highly intelligent and devious to the point of obsession, this piratical people revel in the physical and emotional pain of others, for feeding upon the psychic residue of suffering is the only way they can stave off the slow consumption by the Chaos GodSlaanesh of their own souls. The Dark Eldar, particularly their warrior castes, are tall, lithe, white-skinned humanoids. Their alabaster skin is death-like in its pallor, for there is no sun within their dark realm to provide colour. Their athletic bodies are defined by whipcord muscle, shaped and enhanced until they are superior to those of their Craftworld Eldar counterparts, as the Dark Eldar prize physical and martial prowess highly. Yet for all their physical beauty, the Dark Eldar are still repugnant monsters. When viewed with the witch-sight of a psyker, the Dark Eldar's black souls are revealed, for they eternally thirst only for the anguish and torment of other thinking beings in order to fill their own infinite emptiness.

The Sisters of Battle

The Adepta Sororitas, also known as the Sisters of Battle are an all-female division of the Imperial Cult's ecclesiastical organization known as the Ecclesiarchy or, more formally, as the Adeptus Ministorum. The Sisterhood's Orders Militant serve as the Ecclesiarchy's fighting arm, mercilessly rooting out corruption and heresy within humanity and every organisation of the Adeptus Terra. There is naturally some overlap between the duties of the Sisterhood and the Imperial Inquisition; for this reason, although the Inquisition and the Sisterhood remain entirely separate organisations, the Orders Militant of the Sisterhood also act as the unofficial Chamber Militant of the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus. The Adepta Sororitas and the Sisters of Battle are commonly regarded as the same organization, but the latter title technically refers only to the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, the best-known part of the organization. The Sisterhood serves as the Ministorum's only official military force because the Decree Passive laid down by the reformist Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor held that in the wake of the Age of Apostasy of the 36th Millennium, the Ecclesiarchy cannot maintain any men under arms. This was supposed to limit the power of the Ecclesiarchy. However, the Ministorum was able to circumvent this decree by using the all-female force of the Sisterhood.